He prowled after her. “You handle the agoraphobia just fine while hanging from a tree in subspace.” She stumbled against the wall, and he closed in, blocking her on either side with his arms. “You don't even know you're outside when I'm fucking you beneath the shelter of my body.”
“Right.” She straightened her spine, hands clenched at her sides. “So you plan on whipping and fucking me during this meeting with Liv? 'Cause I'm not sure that'll help your fatherly image.”
“No. I'm just saying you can do this without the mental distractions. I won't leave your side, Amber, and I would never let anything out there harm you in any way.”
She shoved against his chest with a shriek and slipped beneath his arm, shuffling backward. “My enemy isn't out there, Van.” She thrust a finger at the garage doors. “It's here.” She gripped her head. “Right here. I sit in this house day after day and tell myself I'm strong, that I'm better than this. But once I step outside, something takes over. Something more powerful than me invades my body and I can't fight it. I try.” She sobbed. “I fucking try. But it brings me to my fucking knees. Every. Time.”
He reached her in two strides and lifted her into his arms. His chest was so fucking tight it felt like his heart was shrinking. He couldn't fail her. He wouldn't. He carried her out of the garage and through the house. “When you're ready” —he climbed the stairs— “you'll be there with me.”
With a heavy sigh, she hugged his neck. “So you won't go see her? You won't leave?”
God, she sounded so relieved, and he was about to steal that away. He set her on her feet beside the railing in the loft. “Liv is singing in a bar tonight. It's neutral ground, a good place for me to feel her out.”
“What?” She gripped his hair and pulled his face to hers. “You can't. She'll turn you in, Van. You can't go.”
He removed her hands from his head, walked to the nightstand, and grabbed a length of rope. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
She gaped at him. “No. Why?”
“On your knees.” With the rope taut between his fists, he returned to her with a clear sense of purpose in his strides. He promised her a punishment, and he expected her to remember. She must've read the intention in his eyes because she lowered to the floor.
“Arms up and together.”
She obeyed, but of course, she couldn't keep her mouth shut. “You can't punish me for having thoughts, Van. They're just thoughts!”
Insidious thoughts that fed an eating disorder. He wound the rope around her wrists—nineteen times because she'd told him once it was her least favorite anti-number—and tied it off at the base of a banister beam on the railing. An anchor hitch knot she wouldn't be able to undo with her bound hands.
The restraints were just preliminary, to prime her for the punishment she would receive when he returned. The rope prevented her from standing and leaping to her death, but she could lie down. Which was a mercy because she would be there awhile.
He left her with a lingering kiss and adjusted his tie on the way to the front door. A sudden thought veered his path toward the kitchen counter, to the doll she'd left there. He picked it up and lifted the gown, pressing his thumbs against the seams in the leather torso.
“Stomp on it.” Her voice drifted down from the loft.
He spun and met her gentle eyes peering through the railing overhead. When she gave him an encouraging nod, he set the doll on the floor and slammed his loafer into the soft belly. The limbs bounced but remained attached. He cocked his head, heart thundering. With an unsteady hand, he scooped it up and raised the gown. No holes. Every stitch intact.
The tingling started in his hands and spread out through his entire body in a warm feeling of weightlessness. “You did it,” he whispered then raised his voice. “You fucking did it.”
When he looked up, her gorgeous, teary smile lifted him on his toes. He wanted to tell her that she had to come with him, that he needed her because he loved her, that she found him and released him with a fixable doll, and maybe, just maybe, she could fix him, too.
But the warmth that nuzzled every tattered shred of his being didn't come from some doll. It was brought to life by her unfathomable understanding. She could have called him a creeper and spit on his collection. Instead, she supported it by devoting thought and effort to make it better, not for herself but for him.
He wanted to tell her this, wanted her to know how much her actions moved him. But as she sat back and pulled her bound wrists to her chest, her smile soft, her lashes lowered, she seemed to already know. So he settled on a thickly uttered “Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
He placed the doll in a paper bag and tucked it under his arm. With one last glance at Amber, he squared his shoulders and hardened his expression. “I'm whipping your ass when I get home.”
She nodded, her eyes gleaming with an inner light. “I know. Just come home.”
Fuck, he loved her so much it hurt. If anything happened to him, if he wasn’t able to return, would she die of starvation? He shoved a hand through his hair, his fingers clenching. “I promise.”